The present invention concerns a convenient and nutritious food product, prepared from cereals and other starchy seeds or tissues, having predominant use as a hot breakfast cereal as well as other uses.
The base for the food is chosen from any one or more of barley, corn, rice, or sorghum, or other starchy seeds, or food raw materials of a suitable starchy composition.
Starch can be of two types; amylose, and amylopectin. Amylose is a straight chain glucose polymer having .alpha. 1,4 linkages. Amylopectin is a branched chain glucose polymer with 1,6 linkages at the branching points. In general, grains will contain both types of starch. Amylose is generally in the minor proportion in grains. However, with certain grains, such as barley, corn, rice, or sorghum there exist certain varieties which contain substantially no amylose or only a very small amount. It is conceivable that plant breeding technique can produce other starch-containing crops having this character.
It has now been found that food products as described herein made from raw materials which contain little or no amylose have unexpected and surprisingly useful advantages over other previously prepared food products of this general type. These low-amylose or amylose-free cereals are known as "waxy" cereals.
Alderman (U.S. Pat. No. 2,526,792) describes the use of waxy grains in flour, grits or wholegrain form or the use of starch derived from these to manufacture crispy ready-to-eat breakfast cereals by a factory process which involved total gelatinisation and a final oven puffing, producing a crispy browned cereal which was reasonably impervious to milk or cream when eaten, thus remaining crispy. Clausi et al (U.S. Pat. No. 2,954,296) used a proportion (5-30%) of pre-gelatinised, optionally waxy-type starchy material to form into pellets with other ingredients, the pellets being gun-puffed to produce low-density, crispy breakfast cereal or snack foods which more faithfully resemble the defined shape of the dough piece. Goering et al (U.S. Pat. No. 4,311,714 & other patents) describe methods for producing from waxy barley grain high maltose syrups, protein, gums etc, using an integrated plant.
Barley is not known to have been reported or used for the manufacture of hot breakfast products of the porridge type. The previous use of barley as a food grain has been limited, and has mostly been used in soups as pearled barley, in beverages as barley water, as a rice extender, (namely rice mixed with pearled barley) in bakery products such as flour, kibbled or whole grain, and in the manufacture of malt for beer and spirits. Barley has also been widely used in the form of malt extract as a flavourant.
In the present specification, the invention is discussed in relation to barley, but the invention is not limited in any way to barley, and also has relevance to corn, rice or sorghum and other starchy seeds or food raw materials which have or may have this characteristic.